Energy · 1907

Pumped-storage hydro

Surplus power pumps water uphill to run back down when needed.

The Engeweiher plant near Schaffhausen, Switzerland used pumped storage from 1907. It is still over 90% of the world's grid energy storage capacity, well above 150 GW, with round-trip efficiency of 70 to 85%.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Hydroelectric power 1878

What it led to 1

Cheap long-duration grid storage ~2032

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Share of electricity from low-carbon sources Latest: 42.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data

World electricity generation Latest: 31.8k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Cost of memory and storage Latest: Memory: 1.09k $/TB (2023) Source: Our World in Data